Bush to keep cleanup rules for mines

The Bush administration today will endorse Clinton-era rules that require mining companies working public land in the West to post financial guarantees assuring cleanup of their operations if they go bankrupt.

The move, a small victory for environmentalists and taxpayer-protection groups, appears timed to head off stronger environmental protection measures backed by U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., among others. Those efforts are expected to be debated next week in Congress.

The administration's move to back new cleanup guarantees adopted in the waning months of the Clinton administration came at the end of a four-day series of Seattle Post-Intelligencer articles detailing failures in the old system.

The old rules stuck taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup costs when thinly financed mining companies declared bankruptcy and abandoned mines, the P-I revealed.

Under the Clinton administration's rules, mining firms must post bonds or other guarantees sufficient to cover cleanup costs if they should go belly-up, as did several firms when gold prices plunged in the 1990s.

"It's a baby step, but it's a good step forward," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "The danger is that everyone will say 'OK, the mining industry is fine, everything's fine.' There's still a need for massive reform."

The Washington, D.C.-based fiscal watchdog group wants companies that mine public land to pay a percentage of their profits to U.S. taxpayers -- the owners of the land. They also want to repeal a tax break expected to benefit miners to the tune of $823 million over the next decade.

And environmentalists said that, while they support the cleanup provisions, larger questions will recur later this summer when the Bush administration determines the fate of other regulations adopted by the Clinton administration last November.

The new rules would for the first time let federal officials fine companies that violate environmental regulations, allow officials to reject permits for mines that would cause "substantial irreparable harm" to the environment or to other resources, and for the first time set nationwide environmental standards for such mines.

While maintaining the rule for bonds, the Bush administration does cut the industry a small break. Initially, all mines were to be covered by cleanup guarantees by July 19. That deadline is now Sept. 13 for mines lacking any guarantees, and Nov. 20 for those needing more substantial bonds to meet new requirements.

Environmentalists note that new bond requirements are required under a federal law that says the rules must be "not inconsistent with" recommendations by an expert panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences. The panel called for stronger bonding requirements.

"The Bush administration is doing the environment and taxpayers no favors," said Alan Septoff of the Mineral Policy Center, a mining watchdog group. "They're just doing what they should have in the first place."

The stiffer bonding rules are most likely to cause trouble for operations involving five acres or less managed by the Bureau of Land Management. These smaller miners cause a disproportionate share of environmental damage, the National Academy of Sciences committee said.

"Degradation included open trenches and unreclaimed roads, abandoned mining and processing equipment, and unreclaimed stockpiles of ore and waste rocks," the committee said of sites it visited. "This is a burden to the (federal) agencies and to the taxpayers who will pay for cleanup."

Mining industry representatives said they support the Bush administration's action and that the new deadlines would help smooth over some administrative wrinkles that had developed in trying to meet the Clinton administration's schedule.

Inslee said he and others who have worked to rein in the mining industry will try to lock the rules in place next week, when the House considers the Interior Department's budget. While the House has consistently backed reform of mining laws, Western senators have long succeeded in blocking the legislation, the P-I reported this week.

One of those senators, Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, earlier this month became the second-most powerful member of the Senate. Routine financial-disclosure forms released yesterday show Reid owns mining claims that represent a major portion of his net worth.

The disclosure papers filed by Reid show he owns an interest in more than 215 acres in mining claims purchased for $5 per acre or less under the General Mining Law of 1872.

The papers say the lands are worth between $250,000 and $500,000. Reid has reported this ownership in previous years. Attempts to reach Reid were unsuccessful, but spokesman David Cherry of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said, "He's had those for a while. They're not active."

P-I Reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattle-pi.com